Oliver Ray "Brick" Price, a self taught modeler and designer who started out as a model maker for the International Modeler hobby magazine, founded the company as Brick Price Movie Miniatures in November 1977. This was the result of an happy coincidence as Price recalled, "I was at ILM one day when Jack Webb called Grant and asked him to do some model work. ILM was too busy, and it looked like the work would have to be delivered on too tight a schedule. So Grant recommended me. I talked to Webb. He said, "How fast can you get to my office?" I said, "As fast as my car can carry me." Fortunately I had a couple of models in the car, and I walked into Webb's office carrying them. The next morning, at 9 a.m. he put me on contract, and I was working on the first model by noon." (Starlog, issue 20, p. 69) The production Price was hired for was Project U.F.O. Originally thinking he could do all the model work alone, he wast already forced a few days later to hire staff, resulting in the founding of his company, made all the more necessary as he very shortly thereafter received Gene Roddenberry's invitation.

Contents

Phase II and The Motion Picture

Original company logo

It was his work for International Modeler that caught the attention of Gene Roddenberry, who invited him in 1977 to help out Magicam to ease the workload for the upcoming Star Trek: Phase II television project. Contracted by Robert Abel & Associates (RA&A), his company was charged with the construction of the revamped USS Enterprisestudio model. Price has stated, "At one time, we were supposed to be responsible for the Work Bees, the space station, the external V'Ger, the Enterprise and possibly the San Fransisco tram." (Starlog, issue 47, June 1981, p. 61) Bringing along Model Maker Don Loos to do the bulk of the construction, Price's company started immediately with the construction of Enterprise model. Both director Robert Wise and art director Richard Taylor however, dismissed the almost complete model as being inadequate to meet big screen requirements, when it was decided, already in late December 1977, to upgrade the project to the Star Trek: The Motion Picture movie project. Price and his team were pulled off the project the following month with the model three quarters complete. The construction of a new model was being reverted to Magicam. Aside from the Enterprise, Price & co. had also started in August 1978 on the construction on an early cigar-shaped version of the V'Ger model, as well as having designed and partially constructed various environmental suits, only to have those taken from them as well as they were to be mostly executed by Apogee, Inc..

Price working on the molds of the Phase IIEnterprise

Due to his association with the unfortunate RA&A, eventually released in March 1979, Price and his team, were nearly dismissed as well. In order to save his company's involvement, Brick Price had to write a letter to the irate executives of Paramount Pictures, explaining what his company did and what the relationship with RA&A exactly was. (Enterprise Incidents; special edition on the technical side, pp. 35-56) That, however, paid off as his company was retained to continue building the numerous props like phasers, tricorders and the like, though that commitment came fairly late as Price recalled, "We were pulled into Star Trek kind of late. We started work only three weeks prior the first day of shooting. There were times when we'd start to work at seven o'clock in the morning and work through till three the next afternoon. I wouldn't want to do that again, but this is probably the only kind of job, where I'd be willing to work those kind of hours." (Starlog, issue 20, p. 71) Although his company eventually produced over 1,250 props for the movie and beyond (additional pieces for conventions and the like), no official credit was ever given, which Price has attributed to residual resentment towards RA&A and his association with them.

Planet Hollywood

Although Price has asserted on occasions that he retained the Phase II Enterprise model, among others to Star Trek aficionado William S. McCullars on his now defunct website "The Idic Page", and in the documentary series Hollywood Treasure (season 1, episode 15, "Trek to the Future", broadcast 8 June 2011), his company's model was discarded by Paramount Pictures after the upgrade to the movie project, as was confirmed by Jim Dow (American Cinematographer, January 1980, p. 153) and Paul Olsen (Star Trek: Creating the Enterprise, p. 46). Nevertheless, he did retain the molds of the model and years later produced from them copies for the "Planet Hollywood" restaurant franchise, among others the New York City location in the early 1990s. The saucer section and torpedo launchers were heavily adjusted to reflect the appearance of the refit Enterprise has in the movies. The nacelles, secondary hull, and the upper dorsal retained its original Phase II design, resulting in an unfamiliar looking hybrid between the Phase II and the movie's Enterprise.[1]. It was the New York City model Price presented to McCullars as being the original. "The model was built from parts pulled from the phase II molds. A lot of models were duplicated so that they could be displayed at more than one Planet Hollywood.", John Eaves later contradicted. [2] American collector Adam Schneider [3] provided additional confirmation of the existence of copies, as he acquired one and had it converted to approximate the The Motion Picture appearance as a companion piece to the actual drydock studio model he owned. [4][5] Further confirmation was provided in the Hollywood Treasure documentary series episode, in which Brick Price himself presented the molds and partial casts of the model. In it could be discerned that some of the molds were at least partially modified and that the castings were not those of the original model.

Being WonderWorks, Inc.

Around the turn of 1986-1987 Brick Price changed the name of the company to "WonderWorks, Inc." and continued to provide special and visual effects assets for several movies. Motion picture productions the company has worked upon after the Star Trek movie included, while still being called "Brick Price Movie Miniatures", Captive (1980), Lifepod (1981), Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land (1983), and SpaceCamp (1986). As "WonderWorks Inc." the company has provided props, sets and miniatures for productions such as, "Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future" (1987), The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988), Apollo 13 (1995), the science fiction blockbuster movies, Deep Impact and Armageddon (both 1998), Counter Measures (1998), and Fallout (1999). The 21st century productions the company has contributed to were, Race to Space (2001), The Day After Tomorrow and Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets (both 2004), Deep Rescue and the television series episode "Space Cadets: Episode #1.6" (both 2005), with The Astronaut Farmer of 2006 its most recent recorded credit.

Aside from motion picture productions, the company also provided numerous models for museums, theme parks, the military and corporations (such as the aforementioned Planet Hollywood franchise), thereby somewhat cushioning the impact the advent of computer generated imagery had on visual effects companies that solely relied on producing them by utilizing traditional, physical methods.

Around Wikia's network

This version of the article has been subsequently revised. Besides normal editing, the reason(s) for revision may have been that this version contains factual inaccuracies, vandalism, or material not compatible with the Creative Commons License.This work may be protected by copyright. Please see 17 USC 108 for more information.